As of late marks the beginning of a yr of birthday party for the USC Alumni Affiliation because it commemorates a century of bringing alumni in combination and strengthening their ties to the college via networking, acts of provider and philanthropy.
The centennial will come with numerous virtual and in-person calls to motion, together with native and world actions for Trojan to rejoice the primary 100 years of the college’s unified alumni engagement efforts to reinforce educational, athletic and analysis achievements. The affiliation could also be advancing the way forward for USC’s management in complicated computing, sustainability and different lunar issues known through USC President Carol L. Folt, in addition to USC’s thrilling transition into the Giant Ten Convention.
The Alumni Affiliation lately has 480,000 residing alumni participants and helps all kinds of affiliated alumni organizations akin to business and affinity networks, explicit college teams, multicultural alumni organizations, ladies’s teams, and extra. The affiliation additionally hosts occasions and systems world wide.
Patrick Auerbach, affiliate senior vp for alumni members of the family at USC, hopes the extensive and inclusive nature of USC’s centennial celebrations will keep up a correspondence a message of good fortune come to all alumni.
We will be able to use the centennial message to rejoice a century of the Trojan circle of relatives to ensure folks know there’s a position for everybody within the Alumni Affiliation, stated Auerbach, who has served as USC’s leader alumni members of the family officer since 2013 and she or he earned her Physician of Schooling from USC in 2008. We need to create a welcoming and open alternative for everybody to be concerned within the a part of USC that implies probably the most to them.
A tale of bringing the Trojans in combination
The Alumni Affiliation had a number of iterations up to now sooner than receiving its present identify in 1998.

Banners alongside Trousdale Expressway at the College Park campus commemorate the one centesimal anniversary of the alumni affiliation. (Photograph/Sal Garca)
In 1885, a bunch of 8 USC School of Liberal Arts alumni, together with long term USC fourth president George Finley Bovard, created the college’s first alumni affiliation. Within the years that adopted, different alumni associations of the varsity had been shaped, together with teams for regulation, dentistry, pharmacy and different disciplines.
As a result of particular person teams lacked a way of university-wide neighborhood, a number of alumni leaders met in Would possibly 1923 to speak about the want to create an all-USC affiliation to unite what could be known as the Troy circle of relatives.
In a while after USC’s fortieth graduation on Thursday night time, June 21, 1923, a neighborhood of USC alumni, volunteer leaders, and trustees collected in what is referred to now as Founders Park to formally determine the Basic Alumni Affiliation, which grew till attaining greater than 4,800 participants. through the tip of his first yr.
The group was once based right through a yr that marked primary adjustments for each USC and town of Los Angeles. In 1923, the Graduate Faculty of USC was once based; scholars got here in combination to shape the Newman Membership on campus, which might ultimately turn into the USC Caruso Catholic Middle; and a USC scholar wrote All Hail, the USC alma mater nonetheless used these days. In display industry, the Hollywoodland signal has been erected over town; opening of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; and each The Walt Disney Co. and Warner Bros. Leisure Inc. had been based in the similar yr.
USC Alumni Affiliation: Evolution Over the Years
The Basic Alumni Affiliation was once the principle fundraising arm of the college right through its early many years, elevating price range to donate the Troy Sanctuary (aka Tommy Trojan) to the college on its fiftieth anniversary and buying and donating the land across the Doheny Memorial Library to create the collection house that is referred to now as Alumni Memorial Park, amongst different crucial contributions that reworked the college from a selection of constructions right into a cohesive campus.
Some of the Basic Alumni Affiliation’s early achievements was once the advent of USC’s first Bureau of Employment within the Scholar Union Construction, an employment place of business for college students and alumni.

Alumni blow their own horns their Trojan spirit right through homecoming in 2022. (Photograph/Courtesy of USC Alumni Affiliation)
As USC has grown over the many years, the affiliation’s position has expanded to incorporate bettering the college’s popularity, development a reinforce machine via alumni networks, elevating cash for scholarships scholar learn about and higher scholar recruitment with an intentional push for extra scholars from multicultural backgrounds.
The Seventies noticed a upward thrust in affinity teams from black alumni who sought after to look extra reinforce, recruitment, and encouragement for college students. The Mexican American Alumni Affiliation (now referred to as the Latino Alumni Affiliation) was once shaped in 1973, adopted through the Ebonics Fortify Team (now referred to as the Black Alumni Affiliation) in 1976 and the Asian Pacific Fortify Team (now referred to as the Asian Pacific Alumni Affiliation ) in 1982. In 1992, the Lambda LGBTQ+ Alumni Affiliation was once formally identified after 20 years of advocacy.
A Life of Provider with the USC Alumni Affiliation
The Alumni Affiliation has been a very powerful a part of the pro and private lifetime of USC alum and Centennial Advisory Committee Jerry Papazian for greater than 3 many years. The 3rd technology of Angelenos, the primary consumer in his circle of relatives to visit faculty, incomes a joint stage from USC in industry and public members of the family in 1977, grew up idolizing the college. From a tender age, he noticed the large affect of USC on his place of origin and sought after to be part of it. Papazian turned into some of the youngest presidents of the Alumni Affiliation in 1994 and has been vocal in his reinforce for larger inclusiveness amongst alumni teams and inviting affinity teams to unite underneath the umbrella of the Alumni Affiliation.
100 years of the Trojan circle of relatives
All over some of the first conferences of the Centennial Advisory Committee, the crowd attempted to explain precisely what it was once celebrating. Somebody within the staff after all responded: Don’t seem to be we honoring 100 years of the circle of relatives of Troy?
Somebody who touches USC, whether or not it is a neighbor, dad or mum, or team of workers member — that is the Troy circle of relatives.
Jerry Papaziani
Papazian believes this easy resolution sums up why the Alumni Affiliation issues such a lot to such a lot of folks and why it is going to most probably stay very important for the following 100 years.
Somebody who touches USC, whether or not it is a neighbor, a dad or mum, or a team of workers member — that is Troy’s circle of relatives, he stated. Other folks come and say, “Oh, this does not if truth be told exist, however if you get right here and keep for some time, you spot it and you’re feeling it.” If that is what we are celebrating, I am in.
Personalize your alumni enjoy
I am hoping alumni see this yr as a time to actually rejoice the Alumni Affiliation and that more youthful alumni see it as a possibility to position themselves in the market, stated Melody Nishida, centennial co-chair, 1978 graduate of All ‘USC Dornsife School of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Nishida has volunteered as a member of the board of governors of alumni associations and in numerous ladies’s associations, councils, teams and meetings of management. The entirety I have achieved with the Alumni Affiliation has challenged me to be informed various things whilst operating with a various staff of folks, she stated.
LEARN MORE: Talk over with the Alumni Associations Centennial Site.
Auerbach emphasised that there are lots of techniques for alumni to stick concerned with the college, together with volunteering, mentoring scholars, talking in USC categories, serving to scholars in finding jobs, making monetary contributions, supporting USC, and skim USC releases and explicit college publications.
He recognizes that these days’s alumni need to have interaction with the college on their very own phrases. We’ve got advanced our type to be extra customizable, as a result of we wish our Alumni Affiliation to be an business chief the place you’ll relate to us the best way you need to narrate to us, stated Auerbach, who stated the group has noticed different universities emulate its systems. Societies exchange and social norms have modified. As an alumni affiliation, we actually strived to be a trendsetter in that house.
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